Friday.
I sent the text to Ninuo before I'd even finished my coffee. Something about my daughter's shoulders, still tight as rope even now trials are over, and would she know anyone good for a proper massage.
She replied faster than I typed the message. Saturday, 11am, the same place in Chatswood we went to last time. Booked already, she said, before I'd even asked if Saturday worked.
I stared at the phone a second. I hadn't even given her a day.
No time to think about that properly — my daughter was already downstairs asking if we could go look at formal dresses today, now that trials were finally behind her and the only thing left before October was one party and a room full of people she'd known since Year 7.
Westfield Chatswood, then. Three hours of it, easily.
She tried on more dresses than I could count. A green one that made her look about twenty-five, which she hated. A black one that fit perfectly and she also hated, for reasons she couldn't explain beyond "it's just not me." A blush pink one from the shop near the food court that she stood in front of the mirror in for a long time, turning slightly one way and then the other, not saying anything.
I sat on the little bench outside the fitting room the whole afternoon, phone in my lap, half-watching, half-scrolling. Every so often the curtain would pull back and she'd step out expecting an opinion, and I'd give one, and she'd mostly ignore it and decide for herself anyway.
That's the part that caught me. Not the dresses. The deciding for herself anyway.
A year ago she'd have wanted me to pick. Practically insisted on it — "just tell me which one, Mum" — standing there waiting to be told. Today she barely glanced at me before deciding she didn't like the black one, decision already made somewhere behind her own eyes before she'd even asked what I thought.
We left without buying anything. She wants to go back next weekend, try the pink one again under different lighting.
Dinner was at Mum and Dad's. We hadn't been over properly in weeks — between the shop and the trials, something always came up. Dad had done a whole steamed fish, ginger and shallots the way he always does it, and a plate of choy sum still steaming when we sat down.
Mum stood in the doorway when we arrived, looking at my daughter for a long moment before saying anything at all.
"You've gotten taller," she said, which she says most times now, whether it's been three weeks or three months. This time it happened to be true — my daughter's nearly my height these days, something I hadn't quite clocked until I saw them standing side by side in the hallway.
We ate late, the fish going cold before anyone noticed, Dad topping up tea nobody had finished, Mum asking my daughter three different times how the exams went and getting three slightly different, increasingly patient answers each time.
Nobody minded. My daughter didn't roll her eyes once, which is its own kind of report card.
Driving home, she was quiet, phone in her lap, the pink dress photo still open on the screen.
"Saturday," she said suddenly, out of nowhere. "Is that the massage thing?"
"Eleven," I said.
She didn't say anything else, just kept scrolling, and I didn't ask what she was thinking.